It seemed to Hetty as if she had known it all her life when the old house came into view. The two wings were a story lower than the centre of the house, which rose into a high roof, with mansard windows rising over the stone parapet; from the east wing the ground sloped away, leaving a rather steep bank of velvet lawn; the other was level with the flower-garden, and seemed partially inhabited. But the lower windows on the west side were all blank and closely shuttered. That was the picture-gallery, Hetty knew, raising its row of long windows above. She wondered if it still was as mamma had so often described it, with the Prescotts’ pictures all stately on the walls, her own ancestors, Hetty’s ancestors, though nobody knew. The carriage drove up to the door, which did not stand open now, as it had done in mamma’s time; only a large person, in a black silk gown, came out, with a not very amiable look, to receive Hetty. “Oh, it’s only the young lady,” she said, with a slight toss of her head, and bade an attendant maid look after the little box and bag which contained the girl’s modest requirements. Then, with a wave of her hand, this grand personage bade Hetty follow, and led her through the hall and a long passage to a bright room behind, looking out upon the trimmest of artificial gardens, all cut out in flower-beds, and still blazing with colour, red geraniums and yellow calceolarias and asters in all colours, though it was October. The colour and the light almost dazzled Hetty, after the cool, subdued tones of the hall. Here a little girl, with her hair in a flood over her shoulders--dark hair, very much _crêpé_--sat at the piano, with a tall and slim figure, on which from top to toe the word “governess” seemed written, seated beside her. The child went on playing like a little automaton; but the lady rose when Hetty came timidly in, following the housekeeper. “Here’s the young lady, Miss Hofland,” that personage said, with little ceremony, and turned away without another word. Miss Hofland was very thin, very gentle, with a slightly deprecating air. She put out her hand to Hetty, and gave her an emphatic grasp, which seemed to mean an exhortation to silence as well as a greeting. “How do you do? Rhoda’s at her lesson,” she said in a half-whisper, signing to the girl to sit down, which Hetty, breathless with the oppressive sense of novelty and strangeness, was very glad to do. She sat down feeling as if she had fallen out of a different planet, out of another world, while the little girl went on playing her exercises, with the “One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,” of the governess’s half-whispering voice. What a curious scene it was! Hetty had time to note everything in the room, and to take in the red and yellow and blue of the flower-beds outside, and the pictures on the walls, and the trifles on the table, while the stumbling sound of the piano, now checked to have a passage played over again, now pounding